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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29631738">with toothpaste kisses and lines</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/merridian/pseuds/merridian'>merridian</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Twosetviolin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, World Tour Era, canon compliant to real life, hehe get it?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:53:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29631738</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/merridian/pseuds/merridian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A hotel bathroom at 4am is probably not the best place to say <em>I love you</em> for the first time and mean it, but that’s what’s funny about early morning lethargy, Brett guesses.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddy Chen/Brett Yang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>133</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>with toothpaste kisses and lines</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I dunno, I wanted fluff, I guess.</p><p>Title from <em>Toothpaste Kisses</em> by The Maccabees.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>It happens like this.</p><p>4:11AM, a hotel room in LA. They’re due for one last sightseeing trip around the city before they head out to Zipper Hall for prep. Their concert’s tonight and they’re flying out the morning after, so if there’s any possible time or day left to see the Hollywood Sign, it’s today. Seeing it is worth waking up at an ungodly hour to get ready. Maybe.</p><p>They’re brushing their teeth together, shoulders brushing ever so lightly as they stand side by side in front of the sink. Brett’s hair is still wet from his shower, his skin breaking out in goosebumps under the blanket of cool air conditioning because <em>of course</em> Eddy left the bathroom door open when he came in.</p><p>He’s a little bit chilled and also slightly irritated at that. But then the latter feeling disappears as quickly as it had arrived, because <em>of course</em> Brett’ll forgive anything Eddy does, short of murder and lying about kissing Emily Young behind the faculty office from way back at the Con.</p><p>Anyway. He’s got his toothbrush in his mouth, but he really needs to repeat this particular tidbit again and again. Just so it sinks in more. “I’m so fucking tired.”</p><p>“Mmm, you said that already.” Eddy’s running his toothbrush under the stream of the faucet. “And don’t talk when your mouth is full.”</p><p>“<em>Don’t talk when your mouth is full</em>,” Brett parrots back at him, opening his mouth wider than necessary. Eddy grimaces at the flecks of frothing toothpaste against the black marble counter that he’s left in his wake.</p><p>“Juvenile. Puerile. <em>Infantile</em>.”</p><p>Brett pauses. “Strange words.”</p><p>“Crossword puzzle,” Eddy explains, like those two words alone can explain his suddenly heightened sense of vocabulary. “I got a copy of the Times while you were buying bubble tea last night. Had the Merriam Webster app open on my phone. You pick up all sorts of loquacious balderdash when you read a dictionary.”</p><p>“Oh yeah?” Brett snorts, shakes his head. “But isn’t that cheating though?”</p><p>Eddy shrugs, blissfully indifferent to the accusation. “Hogwash. I play to learn first and win second, always.”</p><p>A wild rush of fondness surges through Brett’s veins at that, accompanied by the singular thought that his taste in partners remains very superior, because despite the obsession with fancy words and the habit of leaving bathroom doors open, he’s in love with the best person in the world.</p><p>And the thing is: he’s never thought about confessing his feelings, ever. He’s never even thought about the possibility of it happening. And if it does happen at all, in the unlikely chance that it would, well—he guesses it’s going to happen at some grandiose or formal setting. Somewhere picturesque, even, or at least somewhere they’re both wide awake and alert and fully aware of the words coming out of their mouths.</p><p>It happens like this.</p><p>“<em>God</em>, I love you,” Brett says, drowsy and inattentive and fully unaware of the words coming out of his mouth.</p><p>Eddy freezes midway through wiping his mouth with a towel. Blinks. “What?”</p><p>And, well.</p><p>“Uh. I was, um.” Try as he might to backtrack, the words are already in the humid space between them. Brett wishes, suddenly and violently, that he had the ability to rewind time or maybe grab words out of the air and shove them back down his throat. <em>Fuck</em>. “I mean—”</p><p>“No, I heard what you said.” It’s spoken matter-of-factly, tone unreadable. “You’ve never said it like that before.”</p><p>“Like what?” He’s asking, but he’s fucking terrified of the answer.</p><p>Eddy very audibly takes a deep breath. “Like you mean it. Like you mean it to <em>mean</em> more than you’ve been meaning it for the past few years.” The words come tumbling out quick like they’re being chased out of Eddy’s mouth. “Like you mean not-friend. More-than-friend.”</p><p>Brett doesn’t even bother to call him out on the babbling or the blatant abuse of the word <em>mean</em>, he’s so nervous. “Yeah,” he breathes, washing his own toothbrush in the sink. He has never before wanted to be puddles of toothpaste-spit so badly, if only out of a desire to join them getting flushed down the drain. “Yeah, and so what of it?”</p><p>There’s a pause. Brett keeps his head down as Eddy moves wordlessly towards the steel rack behind him and hangs up his used towel. He’s half-expecting to get yelled at, or maybe left alone in the bathroom. He won’t go so far as to think he might be left alone in LA, but he takes a horrible moment to imagine it anyway. It could happen. Adrift and ashen, just like that.</p><p>It happens like this.</p><p>Eddy steps closer to him. “I want it to mean what I think it means.”</p><p>Brett looks up, startled. Disbelieving. “You mean—”</p><p>“I want it to mean that you feel the same way I do.” Eddy’s looking straight into his eyes, in the mirror. “Because <em>god</em>, I am so in love with you.”</p><p>“You,” says Brett, and clearly, he’s lost the capacity for speech since Eddy took a step towards him, because that’s all he ends up saying, again and again. “You—<em>you</em>.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Eddy whispers, and really, there’s no way he can feel more incandescent than he already does now.</p><p>But then that dark gaze drops to his mouth, and Brett feels a little bit like his heart’s gone supernova.</p><p>“Can I?” Eddy presses closer, fingers caressing the curve of Brett’s cheek as he moves one step, two steps forward. And then, there: a bright smile comes shining out, all pearly whites and mint breath. “I just brushed my teeth.”</p><p>Brett huffs out a laugh that’s equal parts exasperated and exhilarated as he pivots to face the other man. “Shut up now or I’ll make you,” he says. He follows through on his threat with his mouth.</p><p>And yes, Eddy does taste like mint. Toothpaste mint and possibilities and a shared future rising up ahead of them. Cheesy and possibly entirely unrealistic, but goddamn, if it doesn’t feel <em>true</em>.</p><p>He decides it can’t get any better than this, this joy that feels unending. Whatever happens to come out of Eddy’s mouth next, he thinks he can handle it. After this, there’s not much he thinks he can’t handle.</p><p>It happens like this.</p><p>“We should try strawberry-flavored toothpaste next.”</p><p>Brett rolls his eyes. He’s grinning wide. “You’re disgusting.”</p><p>“<em>Revolting</em>, even.” Eddy leans his forehead against Brett’s own, mirroring the unchecked mirth on his partner’s lips. “You love me anyway.”</p><p>And so Brett does. Someday, maybe he’ll come to love crossword puzzles and ungodly morning hours too.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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